How odd of them. It makes no sense as the stems won't add up to the M&E - but hey.
Give them what they want. You can either do it the way you suggested, or have an aux that does the music/FX dip under the sync, which has a pre fade o/p for the stem record. Make sure you only dip the M&E mix under the VO (Narr), otherwise you will be delivering a dipped M&E.
You will have to be careful to dip the right thing at the right time.

Yeah, something tells me the music and effects stems as undipped are not supposed to retain relationship to each other or the full mix balance...

I'm trying to figure out a way to accommodate Discovery's Undipped Stems. I usually have an aux set up as a DME dipper to dip under narration. Discovery wants undipped music and undipped fx as if dialog or narration weren't present. Do you guys do all of your dipping of music and effects exclusively on Aux Tracks then take a pre fader send to an undipped bus? Of course if these 2 stems don't need to retain a relative balance to the full mix (i.e flattened for promo purposes) then it won't be hard. I'm currently awaiting some clarification from Discovery.

We are currently having this discussion at work, with regard to the extra time required to mix a flat music/fx then dip that under dial, then make sure that the integrity of that mix is kept when making changes and tweaks further down the line (or if the mix is under time constraints, mix as normal and run through and 'undip' after final client review). I know it depends a lot on the individual project, but has there been any thought to how much extra work this is and whether it is justifiable to make the client aware and pass on the cost?

The way I see it, to be of any use to facilities that inherit these stems for reversioning, the stems have to be 'mixed' and not just flat prefader level, otherwise fx/atmos etc won't be at appropriate relative levels and music crossovers wont work. So it can't be just an automatic process, there has to be thought and attention paid to it.

So, anytime you're mixing against dialog only, you'll be mixing your FX & Music on the FX & Music bus. When VO comes in, the FX and Music busses go to unity and then you pull the Dip bus down under VO. They send a pre-fader from the Dip bus to create the MDE. This allows for everything to happen in a single pass."

Try making an undipped, when your music comes from the offline video editor with cut clip/crossfade at cut/clip gain down under dialogue.
Its a Media Composer way of dipping music.
I actually use that as a starting reference, as the EP has approved the rough music level.
So my dips are minimal, and mostly board fades between music cuts.

But you are still providing a dipped music stem if you do that. Having said that, I think this undipped music stem is sheer nonsense and comes from a complete lack of understanding of how people reversion.

This thread has been dead for a while but I’m about to bring it back to life with THE dumbest delivery requirement to date. Delivering a 22 minute show that contains an on camera host with on camera dialog. The other parts of the show are animated with character dialog as well as host VO over some dialog.

The network specifically requested we treat the on camera host dialog as VO and thus deliver an undipped mix minus VO and an undipped music stem and fx stem. They don’t require an M&E.

Here’s the problem I have with all of this.
1. The relationship of dialog to music and FX changes drastically when the VO is talking over dialog but the MX and FX has to stay a bit louder to help sell the animation jokes. Therefore, mixing with a DME fader does not help.
2. Treating the on camera Host as VO completely eliminates the rule of keeping music and FX dipped under sync dialog since this “VO” is sync dialog!

I get there isn’t always one way to skin a cat but seriously these networks need to conform to ONE way that will work for every territory in the world.